Roofing and waterproofing membranes cover billions of square feet of buildings and protect everything from occupants to materials to processes. How these roofing membranes are applied, and the attention paid to applying them properly, has spawned an entire industry. This industry is devoted to monitoring how the membranes are installed with the goal of a properly applied, leak-free roof. Existing electronic, infrared, and nuclear leak detection methods frequently indicate that installation workmanship does not meet high standards. As a result, many membranes leak from the beginning.
Various methods of building leak detection systems into roofs have been developed to detect and locate leaks. Most or all of these methods are engaged after the roof's installation, as these systems are not fully commissionable and are turned on after construction is complete. Even though these systems are essentially not usable until after construction is complete, they, somewhat paradoxically, require constant, onsite monitoring of the application of the membrane and the built-in leak detection components. This monitoring ensures that the leak detection system will work properly once the project is commissioned, but does little to prevent leaks during the installation process. Unfortunately, inspectors are not always available to monitor the installation, and undertrained roofers may easily overlook the importance of proper placement of the leak detection components. A conductive component, such as a mesh or screen under a roofing membrane must be properly positioned, for example, in order for the system to be testable by electronic means in the future.
All too often, the result is a leak detection component of the roofing system that does not properly function or does not function at all. The conductive portions of the system, for example, may be touching a building element in a way that removes the ability of the conductor to either energize a component under the membrane or to recognize an energizing source in the system. This misplacement causes the energy, instead of flowing to the detector, to flow through the structure to the ground. Other common problems caused by simple poor workmanship on roofs include incomplete seams or holes left in the roofing membrane from other, unrelated construction activities. These may cause leakage either during the installation process or, worse, after the process has been completed.
Prior to the current invention, the only way to ensure that these activities do not damage the leak detection system and that the roof is fully functional and tight is to post a person to watch every move of the roofing crew during the entire project. As mentioned earlier, an entire industry of these roof inspectors has sprung up to address quality concerns, but it is still not possible to have a person full-time on every project. Inspectors parcel their time from one project to the next and try to catch problems after they have been created. As a result, some problems become buried in the roofing envelope and are not discovered until the roofing and leak detection system are commissioned.
There is therefore a need for a simple monitoring system that may be used during the roof installation to ensure that the installation results in a leak-free roof.